I am officially confused by The Ministry schism.

[Rhywbeth]

OK, so my initial grasp of the Ministry was that there was a new schism born of a heresy that claimed there was no need to resurrect Set. Because he exists within the blood of his descendants and the belief of his worshipers who carry out his goals and aims and etc, etc. And yeah, I can see how this would cause a big row. "Refusing to aid in Set's resurrection," biggest sin of the Path of Typhon. Heresy. Etc. (Plus a touch of rebranding to appeal to the fledglings.)

Then it was that because the Ministry wanted to be polytheists instead of practicing the Setite religion of their clan(?)

And now I've been told that it was because, after the final deaths of the most powerful members of the clan, Egypt no longer holds so much sway over the clan on a global scale and the Clan of Faith is 100% decentralized and all the branch cults who worship the Dark God under other masks than Set have redecorated to make him seem more cosmopolitan and less Egypt-centric to appeal to a wider net of potential converts. That... makes sense, I guess...?

I have absolutely no idea what is going on over there, can anyone explain?

[CTPhipps]

The answers you seek are in Beckett's Jyhad Diary and Cults of the Blood Gods

There's apparently been some behind the scenes fiddling with the concept of the Setites with several people forwarding different ideas about what exactly the "rebranding" entails or is motivated by. Ultimately, Onyx Path Publishing's interpretation won out and they're the people who have put the most pen to paper about what the Duat is going on.

The very short TLDR version is:

1. (BJD) The various Set cults have made a lot of variation on the concept of their god: Loki, Damballa (who is not evil), The World Serpent, Satanism, Eric the Goddess of Chaos, and so on. Theoretically, this is all meant to be Set in various guises but there's a lot of people who take their version of the religion more seriously than the orthodox Egyptian one.

2. (BJD) The Fire Court and Children of Wepawaut have started to work to suppress the local religious interpretations of their faith via violence. Why? Because they're vampires. No way was there ever not going to be a way that religion doesn't end in suppression if it means that there's a chance for more power/prestige via bloodshed.

3. (V5, Cults of the Blood Gods) This backfires horribly. The Ministry rebrands itself the "Clan of Faith" and quite a lot of members of the Followers of Set flat out drop Set completely. There's some orthodox Setites among them like Marcel and Hesha but the Ministry is now a lot more varied cult-wise. The remaining orthodox Typhonists rebrand themselves the Church of Set and it's all Set all the time.

4. It's seemingly a roughly 50-50 split in COTBG but the Ministry is more likely to be encountered than the Followers of Set because they've joined the rest of Kindred society in general and the Anarchs in particular.

5. The two sides fucking hate each other.

[CTPhipps]

Random Aside: Basically, OPP has a job of making V5 lore make sense and it seems like every one of their books is doing emergency surgery to save the lore.

Seriously, V5's appeal to me is mostly from their work.

Every book is the best of the V5 line.

[Manfr]

Random Aside: Basically, OPP has a job of making V5 lore make sense and it seems like every one of their books is doing emergency surgery to save the lore.

Seriously, V5's appeal to me is mostly from their work.

Every book is the best of the V5 line.

I get you are trying to make inroads into V5 not-supporters by underlining more and more the role of OPP , but we shouldn't forget that OPP was put in charge of making books for V5 not because the Evil Team of Incompetent Writers was to be stopped, but because the plan was that OPP and eventually other people would write everything besides from the Core and the two Style Guides' books ( Anarch, Camarilla).

BTW, a good number of OPP freelancers worked on V5 Core, and OPP's earlier works are widely referenced in the three main manuals, starting from Beckett's Jyhad diary but going back to the other V20 books.

Things have changed now with Justin and Renegade, but as far as we know it's not like "OPP came in as the White Knight and saved the franchise": OPP did the job they were tasked and, as with most of their content, they did it well.

Coming back to the OP, CTPhipps has basically nailed down the facts: I wish Cults of the Blood Gods had greater information on the Ministry: the bit on the Church of Set was necessary, but it was mostly an extrapolation of earlier Setite lore. A greater focus on the Ministry and their new many dresses would have been interesting.

[CTPhipps]

[COLOR=#202124][FONT=arial][SIZE=14px][COLOR=#4D5156]I get you are trying to make inroads into V5 not-supporters by underlining more and more the role of OPP , but we shouldn't forget that OPP was put in charge of making books for V5 not because the Evil Team of Incompetent Writers was to be stopped, but because the plan was that OPP and eventually other people would write everything besides from the Core and the two Style Guides' books ( Anarch, Camarilla).

Except I believe it was actually, "They made a pitch for the books, Paradox accepted allowing them to do them, and they raised the money via Kickstarter."

Which is the same for any 3rd party contractor.

[Manfr]

Except I believe it was actually, "They made a pitch for the books, Paradox accepted allowing them to do them, and they raised the money via Kickstarter."

Which is the same for any 3rd party contractor.

At the time, if I'm not mistaken, it was NuWW accepting pitches: I think it's fairly unrealistic to think that OPP basically carved its own V5 kingdom surpassing NuWW, outside the boundaries of a general editorial strategy.

Also OPP kickstarted books weren't just "3rd party books", they were the backbone of the V5 line for a couple of years. It's not a situation like d20 products, where you can apply the license and do what you want without particular oversight from the brand developers.

[CTPhipps]

At the time, if I'm not mistaken, it was NuWW accepting pitches: I think it's fairly unrealistic to think that OPP basically carved its own V5 kingdom surpassing NuWW, outside the boundaries of a general editorial strategy.

Also OPP kickstarted books weren't just "3rd party books", they were the backbone of the V5 line for a couple of years. It's not a situation like d20 products, where you can apply the license and do what you want without particular oversight from the brand developers.

Whether you do or don't, I think it was fundamentally informed by the culture and desires of OPP's staff and experience with the setting.

But that's just my opinion.

[Manfr]

Whether you do or don't, I think it was fundamentally informed by the culture and desires of OPP's staff and experience with the setting.

But that's just my opinion.

That's for sure, but I think it doesn't mean it's incompatible or a stand alone parallel to the rest of the line.

[CTPhipps]

That's for sure, but I think it doesn't mean it's incompatible or a stand alone parallel to the rest of the line.

No, I think its a fantastic interpretation of the line that significantly improves on the portrayal in other books.

[Manfr]

No, I think its a fantastic interpretation of the line that significantly improves on the portrayal in other books.

I do agree, I just think it's better not to risk building any other artificial walls between segments of the fandom: there's enough bad blood between V20 and V5 fans, better not create additional barriers between OPP V5 Fans, Martin V5 fans, Justin V5 fans and maybe the lonely Modiphius Fall of London V5 fans (I'm a bit sad they didn't give us the promised miniatures).

[AnubisXy]

Random Aside: Basically, OPP has a job of making V5 lore make sense and it seems like every one of their books is doing emergency surgery to save the lore.

Seriously, V5's appeal to me is mostly from their work.

Every book is the best of the V5 line.

Just to note that on the Ministry/Followers split, this was something that was was hinted as coming in V20 material, specifically Tome of Secrets, which spent time focusing more on the divisions of the Followers and essentially said, "in the future there's going to be a big split." It seems likely that by 2016 when Tome of Secrets was published, the authors had some idea of the direction V5 was going and already started laying the groundwork for pieces of lore, like the Ministry.

[Ragged Robin]

I took it as more of a pr stunt. The setites are lying through their fangs. Then again I found the ministry bland so maybe I'm bias.

[The Gentleman Gamer]

Just to note that on the Ministry/Followers split, this was something that was was hinted as coming in V20 material, specifically Tome of Secrets, which spent time focusing more on the divisions of the Followers and essentially said, "in the future there's going to be a big split." It seems likely that by 2016 when Tome of Secrets was published, the authors had some idea of the direction V5 was going and already started laying the groundwork for pieces of lore, like the Ministry.

Given I wrote and / or developed the Ministry / Setites in Tome of Secrets, their sections in BJD, then Anarch, then profiled a few of them in Chicago by Night, and then gave the Church of Set coverage in Cults of the Blood Gods, you would be mostly correct. These weren't laid down by Paradox or White Wolf though, but were written or developed by myself and subsequently approved.

The same applies for the Hecata. The idea for the Family Reunion wasn't proposed or directed by Paradox. I laid the foundations down in Lore of the Bloodlines, Dark Ages Companion, and Tome of Secrets, developed and wrote it in greater detail in BJD, and concluded it in Cults of the Blood Gods and Trails of Ash and Bone.

It may be different now, and it could be that Paradox gives firm direction to authors and developers before they start working on a book, but when I was creating content (all the way up to the official Boston by Night book you can download here and the material I wrote for Chapters, Heritage, Blood Feud, and so on) myself and the other creatives on these games would write our ideas up and then have them approved, rejected, or have amendments suggested by Paradox after those ideas were submitted, often in the form of a complete manuscript.

Is that the best way to work? It depends on whether you think one's work should be governed by a firm direction at the start and work within parameters, or whether it's better to give the creative free rein and then risk rejecting the whole thing. Or maybe it should be something in between.

Whatever your opinion, I was very fortunate to see so many of the ideas I came up with develop throughout V20 and into V5, some handled completely by myself, others taken on and handled by others.

[Ragged Robin]

Thank you. I always appreciate clarity on these subjects from designers the internal logic of setting developments and the design process fascinates me.

[Rhywbeth]

The same applies for the Hecata. The idea for the Family Reunion wasn't proposed or directed by Paradox. I laid the foundations down in Lore of the Bloodlines, Dark Ages Companion, and Tome of Secrets, developed and wrote it in greater detail in BJD, and concluded it in Cults of the Blood Gods and Trails of Ash and Bone.

Off topic from my original question, but may I ask what happened to the della Passaglia? Something happened in BJD that wasn't expanded on that I recall, and they don't have a loresheet in V5 and I don't know what would've happened to some of my characters from that family in the canon timeline. I heard a theory that the Wan Gui killed them/drove them out, but I haven't seen confirmation on that and considering the Hungry Dead apparently don't exist anymore as far as I know...